How to Create a Pitch Deck

Step 1 : Answer The 10 Questions

Based on Guy Kawasaki’s The only 10 slides you need in your pitch

All investors need clear, brief, and honest answers about your venture that you can delivered in five minutes or less. The goal of your first meeting with investors is get invited to follow-on meetings — not to bludgeon them with every detail of your venture in the hope of getting quickly funded.

A great pitch deck will certainly help. But bear in mind that investors are auditioning you, the founder or CEO, as the leader that will succeed with your great team. Therefore you are the presentation — not the presentation.

The 10 Questions Every Serious Investor Will Ask

Try recording yourself and limiting each answer to under 30 seconds. Use a timer.

Review your answers with sympathetic listeners, consider their feedback, and try again if necessary.

Finally, convert your spoken words to 400 characters or less per answer, including spaces and punctuation.

Then and only then, start creating the first draft of your pitch deck.

1. Title
   Company name, your name and title, address, email, and cell number.

2. Problem/Opportunity
   Describe the pain that you‘re alleviating or the pleasure you‘re providing. The goal is to change the pulse rate of the investors within 30 seconds.

3. Value Proposition
   Explain the value of the pain you alleviate, or the value of the pleasure you provide.

4. Underlying Magic
   Describe the technology, secret sauce, or magic behind your product. The less text and the more diagrams, schematics, and flowcharts the better. If you have a prototype or demo, this is the time to transition to it. “If a picture is worth 1000 words, a prototype is worth 1,000 pictures.”

5. Business Model
   Explain who has your money temporarily in their pockets and how you're going to get it into yours.

6. Go-to-market plan
   Explain how you are going to reach your customer without breaking the bank.

7. Competitive Analysis
   Provide a complete view of the competitive landscape.

8. Management Team
   Describe the key members of your management team, board of directors, and board of advisors as well as your major investors. It‘s okay if you have less than a perfect team. If your team was perfect, you wouldn’t be pitching.

9. Financial Projections and Key Metrics
   Provide a three-year forecast containing not only dollars but key metrics such as the number of customers and conversion rate. Do a bottom-up, not top-down, analysis.

10. Current Status, Accomplishments to Date, Timeline, and Use of Funds
    Explain the current status of your product, what the next version looks like, and how you’ll use the money you’re trying to raise.

Step 2 : Learn How to Design Slides For Investors

Convincing investors to fund your venture may be the most difficult challenge you’ll face starting your venture. Presenting to investors is very different from almost every other kind of presentation.

The hardest part of a live pitch is grabbing their attention within the first 30 seconds. This takes practice and many updates to your opening words. Get a coach or an honest friend who has been down the rocky road of startups.

The best pitch decks for live audiences create their own, unique story with vivid graphics that tell your story visually and as few words as possible for key ideas. If potential investors are able to tell others about your story in their own words, you are very likely to get invited to follow-on meetings.

Your answers to The 10 Questions should be presented in whatever order will get investors immediately excited about the opportunity, your team ability to execute, and believable financial projections that support your funding request.

That being said, some investors or investor platforms may require answering their version of The 10 Questions strictly in order using a limited number of characters per answer.

Review these Slide Design Tips before starting to design your pitch deck

Based upon the book Investor Presentation First Steps by Steve Bowman